The trial in history, volume II

Edited by:
R. A. Melikan

Lawyers had been producing reports of trials and appellate proceedings in order
to understand the law and practices of the Westminster courts since the Middle
Ages, and printed reports had appeared in the late fifteenth century. This book
considers trials in the regular English criminal courts in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. It also considers the contribution of criminal lawyers in
developing the modern rules of evidence. The book explores the influence of
scientific and pseudoscientific knowledge on Victorian insanity trials and
trials for homosexual offences, respectively. The British Trials Collection
contains the only readily accessible and near-verbatim accounts of civil trials
from the 1760s, 1770s, and 1780s, decades crucial to understanding how the rules
of evidence developed. It might be thought that Defence of the Realm Acts (DORA)
or its regulations would have introduced trials in camera. The book presents a
comparative critique of war crimes trials before the International Military
Tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo and the International Tribunals for the former
Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. The first spy trial by court martial after the legal
change in 1915 was that of Robert Rosenthal, who was German. The book also
considers the principal features of the first war crimes trial of the
twenty-first century in terms of personnel and procedures, the alleged crimes,
and issues of legality and legitimacy. It also speculates on the narratives or
non-narratives of the trial and how these may impact on the professed aims and
objectives of the litigation.

Book

Publication History:

R. A. Melikan

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the
subsequent chapters of this book. The book considers trials in the regular
English criminal courts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It also
considers the contribution of criminal lawyers in developing the modern
rules of evidence. The book explores the influence of scientific and
pseudoscientific knowledge on Victorian insanity trials and trials for
homosexual offences, respectively. It also explores examples of litigation
in more unusual English tribunals, Parliament and courts-martial. The book
shows how patriotism, deference, and the self-replicating culture of secrecy
could result in the trial, conviction, and execution of British citizens in
conditions of almost complete anonymity. It examines international trials
for war crimes, what are sometimes referred to as breaches of international
humanitarian law, and human rights violations.

Chapter

Edited by: R. A. Melikan

Publication History:

How the House of Lords ‘tried’ Queen Caroline

R. A. Melikan

In the summer of 1820, King George IV demanded that his government secure the
punishment of his estranged wife, Queen Caroline, for her allegedly
adulterous behaviour. Ministers acquiesced, and introduced a bill of pains
and penalties to deprive the Queen of all royal titles and privileges, and
to affect a divorce. After lengthy consideration by the House of Lords the
bill was withdrawn, to the King's annoyance and the embarrassment of
his government. This chapter examines the bill procedure as a parliamentary
phenomenon. It conferred on Parliament considerable authority, but its
unusual process also subjected the legislature to considerable strain.
Caroline's 'case' was one that the government had tried hard
to avoid. Legally obscure, politically dangerous, and generating
considerable public disquiet, it had been forced upon ministers by the
refusal of both the King and Queen to compromise.